@hildabast @PLOS This is great! Thank you. I agree on all points. It’s exciting to see any metaresearch on social migrations. I hope you can do more in the future.

As a 2022 Mastodon migrator and 2025 Bluesky dabbler, I would like to thrash all 3 web platforms (M has 2) for basic usability.

But I use them differently. Mastodon is more community, hashtag, and gentleness like 2008 Twitter. Civilized, friendly. Shuns evil. Bluesky is more viral dunking and pre-Musk Twitter with a high tolerance.

@hildabast @PLOS Good article: interesting there is no mention of Threads in the piece, or as of now user comments

@hildabast @PLOS

I noticed a lot of the phenomenon you're describing here. I call them the "petits curés" of Masto. Ppl just issuing "edicts" that in no way reflect the policies or protocols or restrictions of their instance, nor really of any other instance. "please avoid doing x," "please remember to do y," "I've seen a lot of you doing x and you have to stop...".

Enough already. You could see how it fed the platform's rep for sanctimony. I hope it is settling down. Thx for the article.

@hildabast @PLOS I deleted my account on BlueSky over a months ago I was thinking should I try on mastodon guess what I love it!!!

@hildabast @PLOS I'm #transgender and left #Bluesky after 2 years there earlier this month. I've used the #fediverse in some capacity since 2017 and love it. I went to Bluesky to see #ATProto progress, tried #Blacksky servers which failed miserably for me and a ton of other users in reliability (Couldn't post, blank feeds).

So now i'm back here but bridged to follow some Bluesky accounts. I think if more accounts there bridge that will help people feel more inclined to come back.

@hildabast @PLOS what Bluesky controversies? I'm still on there, what is going on?

@hildabast @PLOS

I had a Bluesky account to be able to read others' posts. I finally deleted it this week. I don't want to support it. I won't boost bsky toots anymore.
It's not much, but I do what I can.

@hildabast @PLOS
Great article, thank you! I have accounts on Mastodon and Bluesky, too. For the time being, I do find Bluesky attractive because I do find a lot of Austrian journalists and literature accounts there, which is not the case for Mastodon. I wish it was the case.

Interesting perspectives as always! Mastodon's new service offerings are also relevant here; it could be a good path to getting institutions to move to fedi - and fits in well with the decentralization approach.

That said, one other thing that's changed since 2022 is that Mastodon plays a less-central role in fedi, a dynamic that I think is likely to accelerate over the next year. A few examples:

• Bonfire's work on Open Science, for example, is especially relevant to scientists
• GoToSocial is now a great choice for people looking to run small sites
• Ghost and Wordpress have solid intergrations
• the "Threadiverse" has link aggregators like Piefed and forums like NodeBB
• Bandwagon and Mirlo are music-oriented options
• Flipboard's integration provides access to a lot more media sites

And the list goes on ... so I think that if there's another migration it will be to the fediverse as a whole (rather than primarily Mastodon).

On the other hand, the emergence of community-focused Bluesky-compatible platforms like Blacksky highlights that Mastodon and the fediverse aren't the only possible destinations for a Bluesky migration. Mastodon's whiteness was a huge problem in 2022, and while Bluesky PBC itself is very anti-Black, Blacksky is a really important counterweight. Mastodon's challenges haven't gone away on this front; the way Blacksky continues to be erased in discussions of decentralization in the ATmosphere is a great example. I think there's general awareness that this is an issue that needs to be addressed -- @julian ran a good session on this at a FediForum -- but it's still an open question to me whether people here will collectively prioritize this enough to make progress.

At any rate, interesting times ... it'll be interesting to see how it plays out!

@hildabast

I haven't really noticed anyone who said they were coming over from Bluesky.

@hildabast @PLOS

@hildabast
I am on both mastodon and bluesky. Some are primarily on bluesky but post links on mastodon.
@PLOS

@hildabast @PLOS I can see why influential people on Twitter are frustrated here. They would just show up on my Twitter timeline due to Twitter's algorithm, but on Mastodon there's a startup delay where I won't see them unless someone I follow sees them.

But also made me realize that I can use someone else's follows as a kind of starter pack, at least until Mastodon rolls out something better.

@hildabast @PLOS

I'd like to credit @richardsever and the bioRxiv bots for keeping me in Mastodon – because to me that's one of the best uses of a social network: keeping up with the literature in my field, while also seeing boosts of literature beyond my field, alongside science outreach pieces.

And also @jocelyn_etienne for @flypapers , and @giorgiogilestro for setting up drosophila.social – all of these mattered a lot to me and continue to do so. My hosts too, at mathstodon.xyz – thanks for the T-shirts!

Finally, being able to follow tags is just wonderful. What would we do without the sense of wonder brought about by Bloomscrolling, SilentSunday, iNaturalist, entomology, and so many more.

#academia

@hildabast @PLOS excellent. Love the quote "“I’m going back to the Fediverse. Back to Mastodon. To the nerds, the hobbyists, the idealists. The people who don’t talk about reach, but about relevance. To those who understand that decentralization isn’t nostalgic, it’s the future. That digital sovereignty isn’t a gimmick, it’s a survival strategy."